Donald Trump is using the Brett Kavanaugh fight to stoke a #MeToo backlash and rev his base. Show them they're outnumbered. Punish them at the polls.

The United States now has a Supreme Court with two justices who are credibly accused of sexual misconduct. The three women on the court still outnumber them, but barely.

At one-third female, our highest court is actually far more representative of our population than our Congress, which is 19.3% female, or the Senate that just confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which has 23 women out of 100 members.

The only place in American politics where women are properly represented is at the ballot box. They make up the majority of our population and have out-voted men in pure numbers since 1966. They have also gone to the polls at a greater percentage since 1986, according to a self-reported study of the electorate from The Center for American Women and Politics.

What have women gotten for their superior civic commitment? A Supreme Court that’s poised to leave their daughters and granddaughters with fewer rights than women won in the 1960s and 70s.

Susan Collins distorted Kavanaugh's views

History will remember that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, provided the shadiest moment of a massive cover-up that produced Kavanaugh's ascent to the Supreme Court.

Staged for the camera with senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi behind her, Collins demanded the nation’s attention to make a case that Kavanaugh would preserve Roe v. Wade and legal abortion, and reduce the number of 5-4 court rulings.

If this accurately described President Donald Trump's second nominee for the court in any way, “pro-lifers” would be in the streets burning copies of "The Art of the Deal." And Vice President Mike Pence would be with them, on Sen. Ted Cruz’s shoulders. Instead, Operation Rescue — a group working since the 1980s to make America “abortion-free” by almost any means necessary — stood “in unwavering support” of Kavanaugh.

It’s bad enough that Collins enthusiastically lied to America about this nominee. But by holding out to end of the process to make her case, she validated every sick twist of this sham.

Collins backed a life-long partisan whose record from the George W. Bush White House has been carefully concealed from the public, facilitating a tsunami of mistruths during his testimony. She endorsed a nominee who melted down and promised vengeance against Democrats. She validated the attacks on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, led by Trump, who mocked her imperfect memory of the assault to suggest she’s a liar and not just a typical trauma victim. And she enabled Republicans to put a woman’s face on this sick effort to silence survivors with an investigation so limited it might as well been conducted by Kavanaugh’s pals Squi and PJ.

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you know Trump would not have been able to appoint anyone to the court without the support of white women or, as Trump calls them, "women." CNN exit polls found that while Trump lost all women by 13 percentage points, 52 percent of white women backed his candidacy. Better data complicates that narrative, but it still shows a narrow white female majority for Trump.

There may be an even more precise description for the sort of women who backed Trump — Republicans. In a wild coincidence, 73 percent of Republican women also believe Kavanaugh over Ford. Meanwhile, 74 percent of Democratic women and 56 percent of independents trust Ford more. Not too surprisingly, Americans of color are the most likely to believe Ford.

Patriarchy has rarely seen a threat like the recent rise of the #MeToo movement, which was created in 2006 by Tarana Burke. It’s a groundswell so disorienting to white male power that people like Susan Collins have to pretend to support it, even while explicitly explaining why they can’t believe this one particular survivor who is inconvenient to their aims.

#MeToo may also help explain why the public believes Ford over Kavanaugh 45 percent to 33 percent. That's a seismic shift from 1991, when a poll found 58 percent believed then-nominee Thomas over Anita Hill, who alleged he had sexually harassed her. Only 24 percent said they believed her more.

Trump stokes #MeToo backlash and GOP vote

This did not stop Republicans from rolling ahead. Trump has savored the chance provoke a backlash against #MeToo and Democrats by stoking the idea that mothers should fear for their sons’ reputations. Never mind that boys and men are far more likely to be sexually assaulted than falsely accused of rape.

Republicans have been searching for a way to keep their voters angry even when they have gotten exactly what they want — control of all three branches of government; massive, unfunded tax cuts for the rich; a choke hold on the federal judiciary. They now appear almost as excited to vote as Democrats.

But for women something more is at stake.

“I was … wondering whether I would just be jumping in front of a train that was headed to where it was headed anyway, and that I would just be personally annihilated,” Ford said in her testimony in the Senate.

Susan Collins made her choice. She decided she wanted to drive that train.

Voters can’t change what happened to Dr. Ford, but we can decide this November, and many Novembers to come, if Republicans will be rewarded for annihilating her.

Jason Sattler, a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and host of "The GOTMFV Show" podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @LOLGOP